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Profanity Doesn't Work

hanselman.com

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Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#71

Post by shanselman »

buff-a wrote: post #64

Personally, I don't use "fuck" on my company website, but I use it merrily on facebook and my personal blog. Looks like Zach used "shit" (OMG) on his personal blog, and Scott gets his knickers in a twist. Can't help but notice that Scott works for Microsoft and Zach works for GitHub. I don't think its a coincidence.

It's a coincidence. Not everything in my life has to do with my employer. FWIW, note that I work from home on open source and many of our projects are on GitHub. Zach and I are cool. No one's in a twist, we just differ on how to reach an audience.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#72

Post by vacri »

Dove wrote: post #67
sams99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are always offended for "other" people, I would be curious to hear the thoughts of a person who is truly offended by the word fuck. Does it have some magic powers that cause it to fire off a pain circuit in mutant brains?

I find profanity offensive in general. It's not words themselves that matter. It's what people mean by them. Saying "please", vacuous as it might be, communicates consideration. Profanity communicates the opposite. Of course, it isn't that simple; language is language and context is everything. Sometimes someone swearing at you means, "Some people would be offended by this, but I know you can take it." The inconsider…

Context is far more important than profanity. Saying 'please' in the right way can be highly offensive, depending on context.

Despite being 'the magic word', there's nothing magic about 'please'. It's just a word. It's the context it's used in that communicates consideration or not.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#73

Post by vacri »

feralchimp wrote: post #19
buff-a wrote: post #14

However, you take no chances of offending by not swearing, but you guarantee to offend someone if you do. Good. Fuck them. Believe me, we aren't going to get along. Best to know now. Also, I believe in evolution, think the earth is more than 4000 years old and I support gay marriage. That offends a ton of people and expressing that opinion has the same effect on those "relationships" as saying "fuck". You might think…

If you're writing people off as "too far outside your value system to be worth bothering with" because they happen to find swearing offensive, you're missing out on knowing a lot of really awesome people for a pretty stupid reason. Then again, your policy does save them hassle, so maybe it's for the best. Penalties offset...repeat first down.

You have the cart before the horse. He's not preventing the relationship by using profanity, it's those other people that are preventing the relationship by refusing it due to profanity. It's very rare to have a user of profanity refuse to talk to someone else simply because they're not swearing.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#74

Post by buff-a »

feralchimp wrote: post #19
buff-a wrote: post #14

However, you take no chances of offending by not swearing, but you guarantee to offend someone if you do. Good. Fuck them. Believe me, we aren't going to get along. Best to know now. Also, I believe in evolution, think the earth is more than 4000 years old and I support gay marriage. That offends a ton of people and expressing that opinion has the same effect on those "relationships" as saying "fuck". You might think…

If you're writing people off as "too far outside your value system to be worth bothering with" because they happen to find swearing offensive, you're missing out on knowing a lot of really awesome people for a pretty stupid reason. Then again, your policy does save them hassle, so maybe it's for the best. Penalties offset...repeat first down.

If you're writing people off as "too far outside your value system to be worth bothering with" because they happen to find swearing offensive, you're missing out on knowing a lot of really awesome people

No, not so far. Its pretty much a 1-1 correlation. Offended by sounds and symbols => holds irrational beliefs => easily convinced to support abhorrent acts.

In fact if I meet someone who is utterly unphased by continuous war, hunger, famine, rape, and torture, then they are guaranteed to be offended by a simple sound and make a huge fucking deal about it.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#76

Post by vacri »

molbioguy wrote: post #52

Society works on a handshake; there is no ultimate moral arbiter. So when the vast majority agree that certain words are no longer offensive, then it's OK to use them without concern. However, as long as that isn't the case (and it certainly is not the case in general in most societies at this time) you have to consider more than just your own personal views on profanity. If you are offending a portion of your audien…

Broadcasting something on a very public medium like the internet means you can't possibly predict your audience and therefore can't really determine whether religion will be offensive or not. So why not refrain.

Broadcasting something on a very public medium like the internet means you can't possibly predict your audience and therefore can't really determine whether politics will be offensive or not. So why not refrain.

Broadcasting something on a very public medium like the internet means you can't possibly predict your audience and therefore can't really determine whether NASCAR will be offensive or not. So why not refrain.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#77

Post by buff-a »

shanselman wrote: post #71
buff-a wrote: post #64

Personally, I don't use "fuck" on my company website, but I use it merrily on facebook and my personal blog. Looks like Zach used "shit" (OMG) on his personal blog, and Scott gets his knickers in a twist. Can't help but notice that Scott works for Microsoft and Zach works for GitHub. I don't think its a coincidence.

It's a coincidence. Not everything in my life has to do with my employer. FWIW, note that I work from home on open source and many of our projects are on GitHub. Zach and I are cool. No one's in a twist, we just differ on how to reach an audience.

Its not that you differ on how to reach your audience. Its that you felt you had to call someone out on their personal blog post for using the word "shit". And while not everything in your life has to do with your employer, certainly your personal attitudes determine what kind of company you work for. Zach works for a start-up, shaking up the world of software development. You work for Microsoft, the living example of status-quo, monopolizing, our-way-or-the-highway. So, thanks for spending your time telling us we shouldn't use the word "shit", and that we should use "the Microsoft stack".

Update: it just dawned on me that perhaps you thought i was suggesting that you were "attacking" Zach in some Microsoft vs GitHub proxy. No that's not what I meant at all. I'm saying its funny that the roles in this comedy, "grumpy old man" vs "uncouth upstart", neatly match the roles of your employers.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#78

Post by vacri »

dorian-graph wrote: post #61
semanticist wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't assume that everywhere that speaks English has the same monoculture. A very strong aversion to swearing is, as far as I can tell, specifically American. I'm Scottish and I swear more or less continuously, using words that are considered to be the 'most offensive'. This isn't 'trying hard', it's simply a cultural artefact, a side-effect of growing up working class in a particular place in the world. This kind of…

In case people are assuming I'm American, I'll clarify. I'm not American, at all. My father is from Glasgow and I was born in Australia (Australians are known for their liberal swearing, it's the culture, apparently)—what other culture aside from Scots and Australians swear more and are less likely to be offended by it? ;) With flaws/weaknesses I agree that they should be 'embraced' so that they can be improved upon…

It seems a common idea so far here and in most places is that 'not swearing' is inherently a religious side-effect. I have friends who are not religious and maintain their concepts of good, clean speech, of valuing what they say.

Two of the most proficient users of profanity I know are a pair of linguists, mother and daughter. They are both heavily passionate about the English language and will engage on the topic for hours at length if you let them. Both think that books are sacred and have groaning bookshelves. The mother was an editor for a very long time and has articles in peer-reviewed journals on the topic, the daughter is a speech pathologist. They are very proficient in English, and know the science and arts behind it, far more than the vast majority. They are proficient in getting communication across in a variety of ways, and both of them regularly use profanity in casual speech.

It's a total and utter misconception that 'people who really care about language don't swear'. Anyone spending time with passionate linguists, speech pathologists, and English Lit enthusiasts will know that use of profanity is not uncommon amongst that demographic.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#79

Post by vacri »

jarin wrote: post #18

I did 5 years in the Navy, so I have to try really hard NOT to swear occasionally. I generally don't have a problem around children or my great grandma, but when I'm giving a talk it's pretty hard not to. I don't put swear words in my slides, though.

I used to work in a hospital with children forming half our patient load. One of my fellow technicians was annoyed because she was saying 'sugar' instead of 'shit' at home now, and it didn't have the same cathartic feel to it.

We used to play around with finding good 'child-safe' profanity. My favourite was 'sweet chilli chicken', which has a nice cadence to it. "Sweet chilli chicken, what do you think you're doing!?". It's a little long, but it worked for a short while...

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#80

Post by vacri »

jamespcole wrote: post #63

Words become less powerful over time, it was't that long ago "hell" and "damn" were considered to be highly offensive, inevitably the swear words of our time will become the the emphasis words of the future. I've always held the opinion that being offended by swearing is a sign of weakness. If a single syllable can make you angry or uncomfortable(when used in a context not specifically designed to insult you) then th…

On the culturally-specific front - 'bloody' in Australia is no longer a 'swear' term, it's just a way to make something 'more Australiany'.

We had a tourism campaign in the UK recently that went very poorly - the slogan was 'where the bloody hell are ya', which in Australia is a friendly catchphrase for "having a fun time, why aren't you here". Apparently the Brits don't generally have the same casual attitude to the word 'bloody'...

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